- The exchange confirmed a 20% headcount reduction
- Its weekly outflows exceed $100 million
Crypto exchange Huobi saw outflows of $64 million in the past 24 hours after experiencing volatile trading of Huobi Token (HT) in Asian hours. Previously, the exchange confirmed a 20% headcount reduction. Its weekly outflows exceed $100 million with this, according to Nansen data cited by CoinDesk.
Few exchanges have experienced such outflows. Kraken lost $22 million in the past week. Huobi’s highest outflows were from the stablecoins Tether and USD Coin. Some ether (ETH) wallets with high balances also contributed.
Stablecoin balance down almost 10%
At present, Huobi’s balance of stablecoins is valued at $681 million, down 9.5% in the past week. Similarly, there was a sharp increase in stablecoin outflows from FTX before the exchange broke down last November. CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju said:
Huobi seems to be very vulnerable at the moment
According to Ju, Huobi’s Bitcoin (BTC) reserves dropped 90% y/y, while Binance’s BTC reserves more than doubled in this time frame. CryptoQuant reports that Huobi’s active user addresses have dropped significantly as well. They stated:
Huobi’s user activeness dropped 44x lower from the peak in May 2019, and 20x lower than Binance as of Jan 3, 2023.
Huobi is overly reliant on HT
HT’s health is of particular concern during this stress test, CoinDesk wrote. Huobi is the most reliant on its exchange token of all exchanges. Deribit and OKX are at the other end of the scale, being the least reliant on their tokens.
According to Nansen, Huobi holds 81% of HT’s circulating supply, or 131.6 million out of 162.2 million. CoinGecko reports that HT’s 24-hour trading volume was just $21 million compared with a $770 million market cap.
In related news, Huobi board member Justin Sun cashed out $100 million in Tether and USD Coin from Binance.
